SYMMES TWP. – If a few eggs need to be cracked to make an omelet, meet a good egg.

Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy junior Nathaniel Hipsley plays first singles for the Eagles tennis team. He’s in his first year on the varsity team and struggling.

But he doesn’t mind. Neither does his coach.

“He has a lot of stuff he needs to work on, but he always gives 100 percent,” said CHCA head coach Lynn Nabors-McNally. “I don’t know how far that will take him in tennis, but it is going to take him far in life. He works very hard and gives a great effort every day.

“He takes a bullet every day and he never has a bad attitude. He never has a match where it’s easy, where he can relax. I give him a lot of credit.”

Hipsley doesn’t like to lose, but being an inexperienced varsity player facing the likes of defending state champion Asher Hirsch of Cincinnati Country Day match in and match out makes for a difficult road.

He chooses to focus on the positive aspects.

“By me being the bullet-taker, that gives the rest of my team a chance to win their matches,” Hipsley said. “If I happen to be the sacrificial lamb at first singles, but we win the match, then that’s worth it.

“I’m just up from the JV, so maybe I’d prefer to be playing third singles or playing doubles and have a better chance to win myself. But if I get to play these great, great players every match, that can only help my own game. If I get a match with somebody at my experience level, I’m going to be ready. It’s like swinging three bats before you go up to hit in baseball.”

Hipsley didn’t take up tennis until he was 15. His mom was captain of her high school team in Michigan and wanted to get back in the game. She brought Nathaniel and his sister Ella - who played on the CHCA JV girls team in the fall - along when she started playing again. He found an athletic home.

Hipsley grew up in Wyoming (the Cincinnati suburb, not the state) and moved to Loveland prior to his freshman year. He had run some cross country, but shin splints curtailed that sport. And in his words, “a guy who’s 150 pounds soaking wet probably shouldn’t be out trying to play football,” so tennis proved a good fit.

He said the best part of his game is his serving, but added he needs work on forehand returns and his play around the net.

“I like the mental part of it,” Hipsley said. “I’m not the biggest guy out there, but that’s one of the great things about tennis, you don’t have to be. If you can think your way around the court and you can move, you can equalize some of the size advantages against somebody.”

Hipsley knows about the mental agility. He took AP Statistics and AP European History as a sophomore and is taking AP English and AP U.S. History this year.